Maybe it’s because it’s almost Valentine’s Day, or maybe it’s because this is the time of year I start dreaming of moving back home, or maybe it’s Robert Earl Keen on the radio — or it could be because the guy who gave me “the best kiss of my life” just found me on Facebook.  Hell, I don’t know – I just know I’ve been thinking about that kiss and feeling all tingly and flushed.

I was 48 years old when I got “the best kiss of my life” and I want to say here and now that I am eternally grateful for it.  I could have gone my entire life without a kiss like that.  Some people do.

Now it wouldn’t be correct to say that I haven’t had any good kisses since “the best kiss,” but I have to tell the truth and the fact is that there’s a butt load of bad kissers out there.

So what makes a kiss, “the best kiss of your life?”  For research I turned to the experts, my girlfriends. You know what they wanted to talk about don’t you?  Yep, the worst kiss of their lives.  And I bet you already know what makes a kiss BAD – too much tongue.

One person described a kiss she got in college that still makes her shudder.  I thought she was going to throw up before she got the whole story out.  The guy came at her like a fish – you know that open mouthed guppy lips thing – and then kept poking his tongue in and out like one of those little chickens you wind up and its head darts back and forth searching for a seed or a worm or something.  What is heaven’s name made a man think that would make a gal swoon for more?

I have to say that it’s tempting to blame men for all that tongue excess, what with their proclivity to rush things from sensual to sexual in 30 seconds flat but my friends who only kiss women also mentioned the tongue thing.  It’s obvious some tutelage is called for and sense I’m pretty sure I know how to do it right I’m taking on the job.  Listen up brothers and sisters.

So how do you make someone’s toes curl and their knees go weak?  My personal opinion is that anticipation is 90% of the kiss.   My experience is that most guys don’t get this.  They’re in too much of a rush.

I want long, slow kisses that have no place to go – they’re not the appetizers you devour so that you can move along to the main course.  They are the main course.  They are exciting and wonderful and incredibly sensual all by themselves.  And yes, sometimes they progress to wet and hot but that’s the thing – it should be a progression.

How I longed for kisses like that.  Through 30 years of marriage I kept hoping I could get my husband to slow down.  Why don’t men understand that a little tease is better than a full-on assault?  All those tantalizing “corner kisses” and little nips on the lips – well, they’re the secret components that are going to get you everything you want.

So here’s my best kiss story – I figure there’s nothing like an example to help you get the picture.

I met Michael at a community function a few months after my divorce.  I had seen him there before and I remember thinking that he was a good-looking guy,  — good-looking but young.

Honest to god, when he invited me to lunch I thought we were just two people who were new in town trying to connect with another human being. When I realized he had a whole different kind of connection in mind I couldn’t get, “I’m 48” out of my mouth fast enough.  He said he was 30.  Oh my.

A few days later Michael drove me out to see his favorite spot on a local lake, a large outcropping of rocks largely hidden by one of those wonderful old Texas oak trees that spread out in every direction.

As we sat in the shade chunking rocks in the water and talking I’m pretty sure that the thought, “there’s a kiss coming” entered my head at the exact same moment it entered Michael’s.

That’s the thought that set everything into slow motion.  Anticipating the kiss, the lightening ran through my body, my breath began to quicken, my face got ten degrees hotter, and just when I thought I couldn’t stand it another second our lips met.

There it was, that long, slow, deliciously soft kiss.  After years in the romantic wasteland of hurried kisses here was manna from heaven in the form of a 30-year-old man with pillow lips.  Oh my indeed.

So Michael and I dated and broke up, made up and split up.  We did the “just friends thing” and the “just sex thing.”  I even broke my absolute unbreakable ethical rule of dating and cheated on a great guy who was funny and amazing in bed because I just couldn’t stop myself – I was addicted to those kisses.

In the years since Michael I’ve gotten some great kisses and a few “step away from my body now” kisses but nothing has ever come close to “the best kiss of my life”

Now I’m smart enough to know that it’s possible to build something up in your mind so much that it becomes bigger than life so I try to keep that kiss in perspective – just divorced, the excitement of thinking I could kiss anybody I damn well wanted to — but in my heart I know that under that big old Texas oak tree there needs to be a plaque that says, “On this spot Sharon & Michael put their lips together and made the best kiss of their lives.”